Old sites are old problem around area

The Prescott Building, on Lancaster Town Common, is under renovation after years of being unused, as seen Sept. 13. SENTINEL & ENTERPRISE / ASHLEY GREEN

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Until it was closed in 2006, the former Lincoln School in Leominster had been the building where thousands of children learned to read, made friends, and began their public education.

Since its closure, it's been viewed for a variety of uses, from business incubators to a recovery high school for students with histories of drug and alcohol abuse.

But nothing was ever chosen. After more than a decade of vacancy, it sits tucked away on a shady parcel of land halfway down Cross Street, waiting.

The plight of the Lincoln School is not unique to Leominster, said Glenn Eaton, executive director of the Montachusett Regional Planning Commission.

The former Lincoln School on Cross Street in Leominster. SENTINEL & ENTERPRISE / ASHLEY GREEN

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"Over the last 20 years, these older brick buildings have just been gradually closing because they are not up to the standards for teaching kids anymore," he said.

In addition to Leominster, Fitchburg, Lunenburg, and Lancaster all have at least one former school that are still municipally owned but are unoccupied. Much of this is due to the high costs of renovation. To bring most of these buildings back up to current codes extensive changes have to be made to electrical, sprinkler and mechanical systems. They also have to be made compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, meaning the installation of costly elevators, and often require asbestos removal.

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In many instances, these costs are so high that Eaton said many communities will choose to construct new buildings rather than renovate old ones, as was the case with the former Westminster Town Hall when it was closed in 2006.

Though local communities also own vacant municipal office spaces and public safety buildings, it's the former school buildings that Eaton said are most commonly found throughout the state.

"It's mostly that we have these hundred-year-old school buildings that were once neighborhood schools and now districts want to have more centralized locations," Eaton said. "Now we have cars and buses, and we can get the kids to one place and it leaves us with all this real estate."

Communities are now having to determine what to do with them.

The city of Leominster is preparing a request for proposal to sell the Lincoln School rather than renovate it, a tactic Mayor Dean Mazzarella said has been successful in handling other city buildings in recent years:

* The former Lancaster Street fire station is now a business property.

* The former Pierce School and George Street School have been converted into housing.

* The former Carter School on West Street is being developed into affordable housing by NewVue Communities.

"We make every effort to develop a plan for the building as soon as possible, which includes looking at demolition or reuse depending on the location and condition of the building," Mazzarella said. "These were buildings that became vacant, the city put them out to all city departments to see if they have any use; they did not, so we sold them to the private sector for successful redevelopment."

Selling off vacant properties is the strategy Eaton said most communities will pursue. He also said this will most often result in former schools being converted into housing because the buildings are already located in residential areas, are usually surrounded with enough parking, and are on parcels of land that aren't typically ideal for commercial development.

On average, these renovations cost roughly $350,000 per unit of housing being built.

Not all communities choose to sell off their vacant properties.

Because of the extensive damage to some buildings since they were closed, the city of Fitchburg has had to demolish several of its vacant properties in the last year. A former school at 260 Rollstone St. was demolished because of its decaying interior, and the former Central Fire Station had to come down because it was structurally unsound.

"There's a huge safety concern with any of these buildings," said Fitchburg Building Commissioner Mark Barbadoro, referring to the risks of fire or structural collapse. "They're a haven for vagrants. If you have no place to go, you find an abandoned building and get some shelter out of it."

Though it is costly and often time consuming, some municipalities choose to repurpose their buildings themselves.

For more than a decade the town of Lancaster has planned to find a new use for the former school known as the Prescott Building, which is now being rebuilt into municipal offices at a cost of $4.4 million in bonds.

"It's not an easy decision, but we always want to find a use that can benefit the town," said Noreen Piazza, the town's planning director. "Because this and the other buildings here are on the national and historic registers, we don't take that lightly as far as demolishing anything."

The town is also trying to find a use for the former Memorial School, which has been closed since 2002, and it might soon have to find a new use for the current Town Hall, which could be designated as surplus property depending on how residents vote in the Oct. 2 Town Meeting.

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